CPS and Tessera Solar strike deal for 27 West Texas megawatts
Luckfahr got CPS Energy to concentrate (solar)… Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com CPS Board Chair Aurora Geis announced this afternoon that 27 megawatts of concentrated solar power â?? enough to power 4,000 homes â?? will start streaming along transmission lines toward Alamo City in 2010. Relative newcomer Tessera Solar is entering the concentrated solar market with a…
Block the re-vote: Democracy a la carte is expensive
Two of the losing candidates in the June 13 runoff — District 2’s Byron Miller and District 5’s Lourdes Galvan — have decided to call it quits despite their opponents’ narrow margins of victory (54 in Miller’s case, 45 for Galvan), clearing the way for a cloud-free swearing in this evening at City Hall. (In…
Water, leaky nukes, and you
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Ten billion or $22 billion? What does it matter how much it costs to build two new nuclear power plants in Matagorda County if a hijacked airliner comes crashing down into the equation? Better yet, where do the billions go if South Texas Project’s best can’t pull enough water from the Guadalupe…
Live & Local preview: Ledaswan
Tonight (Friday, June 19) only: Join ace photog Steven Gilmore and me, cynical buzzkill Jeremy Martin, at Scout Bar where we’ll be watching (and judging, always judging) Ledaswan. The four-piece features Erica Gutierrez on vocals and guitar, Delrick Colwell on drums, David Monzon on guitar, Heather Go Psycho’s Jackee Flores on bass, and former Current…
Chaléwood No. 12: Oscar Nuñez
Oscar Nuñez – The Proposal By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer kiko@cinesnob.net The differences are obvious when comparing actor Oscar Nuñez’s character on the popular TV show The Office to the one he portrays in the new film The Proposal. While his accountant character Oscar Martinez on the NBC comedy is reserved and…
The Heroine to release album Saturday
“What’s up y’all,” are the first words Heroine vocalist Ernest Isaac Benavidez screams on Playing for Keeps, so it’s probably unnecessary for him to add (in his best metal shriek) the band is “from San Antonio Texas!”* But it’s overkill, most often in the form of gratuitous rock ‘n’rollisms â?? the one too many “whoos,”…
H1N1 fears at Port Isabel Detention Center as Human Rights complaints continue
Homosexual detainee “removed” to Nigeria despite violently anti-gay culture. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Amnesty International has come and gone but concerns about a lack of due process and complaints of inadequate medical care continue among detainees at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos outside Brownsville. This week, the appearance of “flu-like symptoms” that has…
Clawing our way to Copenhagen
Ack! Global warming’s meat cleaver rends the nation! Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com On Tuesday, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program released a grand “merge” of years worth of federal global-warming literature, painting as bleak a picture as ever of the future of our planet. It comes at a perfect time. Business interests championed by the US…
Castro’s New Ethics Code
By Gilbert Garcia Councilman Phil Cortez called it “the first major initiative” of Mayor Julián Castro’s new administration. At the very least, Castro’s proposed changes to the city’s Ethics and Municipal Campaign Finance Codes â?? approved this afternoon by the Council’s Governance Committee â?? can be viewed as the mayor’s first fulfilled campaign promise. That…
Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King
Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King Composer: Dave Matthews Band Conductor: Dave Matthews Band Label: RCA Release Date: 2009-06-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording For a band that harnesses so much energy onstage, the Dave Matthews Band studio experience over the past decade has been exceedingly bland and lifeless. 2001’s Everyday and 2005’s Stand Up sound…
Chain-free cafeteria BBQ
Release Date: 2009-06-17 Snoga Bar-B-Cue BBQ is a story of what could have been. Hidden in the southeast side on Goliad Road, Snoga’s is just 1.5 miles from a different cafeteria-style barbecue restaurant on Bill Miller Lane. Yes, we’re talking about Bill Miller BBQ #1, the first of 69 Bill Miller locations. Snoga’s can’t claim…
Fear Me Not
Critic’s Diss
Fatale attraction
Old noir will never die
Miss America, a Mexicanito Fairy’s Tale
Release Date: 2009-06-17 Esperanza Center hosts a world premiere of its much anticipated theatrical production Miss America, A Mexicanito Fairy’s Tale, written by local playwright Jesús Alonzo. It’s the story of young Chuy, a son of working-class immigrants, who loves Vicki Carr, telenovelas, and dreams of winning the Miss America Pageant. June 20 is Gala…
American Sabor Music Fest
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-06-17 They’re not training a tiger to pilot a stealth bomber, but Museo Alameda will celebrate its new exhibition, American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music, in the second-coolest way possible: free concerts. Saturday’s show, featuring Brownout, DJ Scuba Gooding, and Mexican Stepgrandfather (above), is the first of three daylong festivals…
The Eternal
The Eternal Composer: Sonic Youth Conductor: Sonic Youth Label: Matador Release Date: 2009-06-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording According to Amazon.com, the two albums most frequently purchased with Sonic Youth’s latest are the upcoming release from AM-rock revisionists Wilco and Elvis Costello’s newest Americana corpse-humping. Take that as less an indication of what The Eternal actually…
far
far Composer: Regina Spektor Conductor: Regina Spektor Label: Sire Release Date: 2009-06-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Since being “discovered” by the Strokes in the early 2000s, Regina Spektor’s been polishing her act for the mainstream. The end result is far, a surprisingly dull record featuring almost none of the playfully whacked, creative gusto that was,…
Monoliths and Dimensions
Monoliths and Dimensions Label: Southern Lord Release Date: 2009-06-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Monoliths & Dimensions, the seventh studio album from Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley’s high-concept ensemble SunnO))), continues the band’s tradition of alienating meat-and-potato metalheads while winning over experimental-music enthusiasts. It benefits from composer Eyvind Kang’s adept and often subtle string and horn…
Land of the lost
To his family, Brent Stephens was a child of promise. A strong student, a star soccer player, a soldier. Even after he experienced a “psychotic break” and was hospitalized for four months during service in Iraq, Stephens was able to pick up the pieces of his life. He did more than that. Though diagnosed with…
Nothing fancy
Rudy’s Seafood on South Flores has been a Southside mainstay for area folks for 42 years. So why did I just hear about it? Maybe because Rudy’s has no website, no ads, and judging by the lunch crowds we encountered hardly needs new customers. Be aware this is not Wildfish, but it’s not Long John Silver’s, either.…
The QueQue
D2 on the downlow Continuing the “East Side for Sale” theme of the past year, the City placed an ad in last week’s Express-News, announcing that it plans to deaccession some of the charming storefronts of St. Paul’s Square to the East Commerce Realty LLC, a subsidiary of powerful local players the Zachry Corp, which…
Amuse-BOUCHE
Amuse-Bouche was the guest Saturday of Chef Johnny Hernandez at his Pearl Farmers Market family-style feast — MesAlegre, “joyful table” — and we were as impressed as the two Austinites across the table, who headed back up I-35 with tales of our city’s all-around loveliness. CIA (as in Culinary Institute of America) grad Hernandez serves…
She’ll take the town by storm
Young Chuy is a dreamy, hyper-creative son of hardworking Mexicanos, whose fervent fantasy is to transmogrify into the tiara-wearing, waving, and weeping winner of the Miss America pageant. He lives with loving (if occasionally baffled) sister Rosa, whose pink bedroom is the feminine backdrop for Chuy’s imaginings, angry brother Bobby, who fears for his brother…
The real roaring fork
According to the original blueprints, the Green Lantern (which is situated between Damien Watel’s northern ventures, Ciel and Ciao 2), was dubbed “The Cave,” and was destined to serve as a wine cellar for the two restaurants. When bar owner Steve Mahoney learned of Watel’s plans for the location, he made a hard play to…
In search of Tom Slick, art collector
“Slick ideas” was the tag for the endless stream of directives and observations millionaire Tom Slick funneled to the three research institutions he founded in San Antonio in his short lifetime. A son and heir of one of the country’s most successful wildcatters, Slick was an insatiable omnivore, consuming, digesting, and regifting everything in his…
Exponential growth
Exponential Records, a local label that releases a handful of projects a year by progressive electronic artists, is transforming the SA scene. This group of Latino bedroom musicians, who bonded over experimental synth samples and hip-hop beats, is getting some major recognition from big names in the music industry and setting a new standard for…
ARTifacts
Christie’s, the renowned auction house that usually deals in lo que muy fancy, had a fascinating lot up for sale recently: a flyer for the Sex Pistols’ 1978 San Antonio performance at Randy’s Rodeo, at an estimated price of $2,000-$3,000. The rare document’s appearance touched off a firestorm of online sleuthery, however, with some peeps…
‘Horse’ Play
Ben Kweller is hurting. The perpetually ebullient singer-songwriter sits in a Denver hotel room with his swollen left foot propped up on pillows, and recounts how, a couple of days earlier, a Fender Twin amp fell on his flip-flopped foot an hour before he and his band headed out for a tour stop in Amarillo.…
Fatale Attraction
The year? 2068. The place? San Antonio. The mission? Figure out what is up with some ridiculously confusing twins while consuming copious amounts of liquor and having one’s memory erased. Sound impossible? It sort of is. The Case of the Neon Twins at Jump-Start Performance Co. is a film-noir style romp through a bleak, futuristic…
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
Coming off a wild 2008 which found them getting a big Hollywood thumbs-up from Tommy Lee at a Guitar Center Battle of the Bands, The Heroine will celebrate the release of their new CD on Saturday, June 20, at Jiggers, along with The Conflict, Top Dead Center, and Bexar County Bastards. It should be a…
LIVE & LOCAL
Sunset Station’s summer-long battle of the bands promises its winner something rare for even top-tier bands (no, we’re not talking about you, Blue October) these days — a headlining gig at the Station’s Lonestar Pavilion, one of SA’s best and underutilized live-music venues. In addition to the chance to stand in weeks-old Keith Sweat residue,…
“Solastalgia” — Errogenous Jones
You’ll have to fight spell-check for this one. Whether you’ll want to or not depends on how you’d feel about six or so minutes of meandering, low-key jazz rock fading into two and a half minutes of white noise. “Solastalgia” sounds like EJ took a jigsaw puzzle of a Weather Report song, shook up the…
Cleto-maniac
Third-generation San Antonian Cleto Rodriguez landed his first late-night talk show on former Houston station LAT-TV three years ago. The comic busted his ass to keep Late Night Live with Cleto Rodriguez’s 13-episode run alive back then, although he probably wouldn’t put it that way. Rodriguez abandoned curse words and just about every other vulgarity…
The glum assassin
When Kate Frazier (Macdonald) tells Frank Logan (Keaton), “You just might be the sweetest man I’ve ever met,” we know something she doesn’t — that Frank is a hired assassin. We also know that Kate’s judgment about men is flawed — she has recently fled a violently abusive husband. Most of The Merry Gentleman is…
S’NUFF film
I’m assuming there’s a lot more of you reading this column now that the video of me base jumping from the Tower of the Americas `note: To protect the safety of impressionable children most of this description has been removed` … the guitar solo from “Maggot Brain” and a strategically placed windsock. Wait, you haven’t…
Dear Uncle Mat
Ever since I jumped in bed with my neighbor in reform school, I have pursued this kind of activity. I don’t go out of my way to look 4 gays, but I do run across them once in a while. Even though I have not been the receiver and am strictly a top person, would…
Home on the Range
GROWING PAINS April is a glorious time in San Antonio, when anything seems possible. The weather brings out the optimist in everyone — especially the gardeners: Yes, it will rain this summer, and we can grow herbs! We will dine al fresco every evening! All we need to solve our little mosquito problem is a…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: I write to you with a doubt similar to the one that Incensed in Chicago felt a couple of weeks ago, when her friend couldn’t believe that Mexicans worked in professional, white-collar jobs. I live in Tijuana, and of the gabachos that put roots here, you can’t find a single professional. Just starving people…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Are you secretly afraid of feeling secure? Do you equate stability with being bored and lazy? Do you suspect that your restless pioneer spirit makes you unfit for the slow, meticulous work of building sturdy foundations? If so, there’s hope for you to change — especially if you make a big…
You Don’t Miss Your Water
By Gilbert Garcia It isn’t easy being a member of the BexarMet board of directors. They’ve endured scandals, public derision, and attempts by the lege to abolish them altogether. So it’s little surprise that this morning’s gathering, largely devoted to the future of the county water board, felt less like a public-utility meeting than a…
The Black Hole TVs
The Digital Transition Aftermath in SA By Haylley Johnson A father gets up in the morning to make a cup of joe and watch the news before heading off to work. In preparation for the analog to digital switch, he had purchased a TV converter box for his old analog TV and set up his…
